librarypunk - 010 - Information Shitteracy

Episode Date: April 29, 2021

This week we’re talking disinformation and misinformation. Also we feature a new segment!  Diary of a wimpy kid getting arrested  Santa Monica Library Branch to Reopen Under Self-Service Model - SM Mirror  Moving Forward, critically (handbook):  Critical Disinformation Studies  librarypunk on twitter.

Welcome to Library Punk. We are where we, God fucking damn it. Welcome to Library Punk, where we are never tirelessly cordial. Big stretch. I see your white leg. I did a screencap. Yes. That's good content for the Patreon.

That, you know, totally exists. Yeah. Arthur, you didn't sit in on my phone. Maybe we can give that to people who donate to the podcast an exclusive screenshot of Arthur stretching. Arthur content. I hit the wrong button. Damn it. Man, God fucking damn it.

See, without Sadie, the whole thing just falls apart. See, like, I'm gone one week and y'all, like, record, like, a fucking banger of an episode. Sadie goes, and we just can't function. All turns to shit. I should have asked

Peter to come hang out this week, but I think he started his new job this week, so I don't think he can hang out. tonight. Get some more drops. Yeah. Just do drops. Just do drops. Just some library punk bloopers. What?

It's like he's here. I can almost hear his voice. Oh, God. Come on, man. I was like dying when I was listening to that episode. Come on, man. Dude. Just kidding.

God damn it, come on. Should we introduce ourselves? Sadie's not here. I'm Justin. He-Ham. I'm Jay. Also, he-him. I'm Carrie. She-Hur. Ladies.

Uh-oh. Lady night. And then I hear that, yeah. Lady night. Yeah. As we discussed before, Sadie's, I assume, doing something related to plumbing. Yep.

Clean it out some pipes. probably. Yeah. That's the only reason I assume anyone ever misses something. Digging a ring out of a you from... Like inbound. Yeah.

I don't know what that is. Oh, that show. Yeah. Yeah, the Wachowski sister, their first film. It's a lesbian neo-noir with Gina Gershone and Jennifer Tilly. Like five minutes in. There's like, oh, I drop my earring down the sink.

Can you get it? And there's like the slow motion shot water running over Gina Gershone's hands as she unscrews the little you bend. It's hot. It's good. All right. Yeah. Everyone go watch Bound.

It's really good. I just realized that's the movie being referenced in No Effects is creeping on Sarah. He meets Tegan and Sarah at a party and asks what women they think are hot. I didn't know No Effects was still making music. This is not a new song. How old is it? I haven't listened to No Effects since the year 2002. So.

Yeah. I mean, they, they just, they did a concert at like, that mic, so not that long ago. Okay. Wow. Yeah, I'm really, I'm really out of the pop punk loop. But I really liked it for a brief period of time. Like I said last week, bringing it back. Arthur's staring at you.

I don't mind. He can't hear you, but. He sees you. Yeah. So we've got two segments, an old one and a new one. So here's the new one. What's wrong at ALA? Diary of Wimpy Kid getting arrested for wimpy crimes. Cop shit. Coop shit. Yeah. So ALA put out one of those read-and-returned posters of Wimpy Kid getting arrested.

They're so tone death. This is like an old poster. This has been there for a while. But didn't they repost it? Yeah. It's so tone deaf. It's pretty bad. It's pretty bad, LA. Pretty bad.

Buy a poster for your library of a child getting arrested for not returning their books by the library. Either that or one of the 50 J.K. Rolling ones. So, you know. I'm personally a fan of Orlando Bloom read poster. I have the Bowie one when they reissued it. Yeah, I got that one with him in the Roots jacket. It's in my parents' basement somewhere. I need to get mine hung back up because I move,

but I normally put it on my... Is it well hung, Jay? Oh, you know it. It sure is. I've been trying to get more shit from my walls. Bowie is. For 14-year-olds, yeah. In case you didn't know,

David Bowie raped a 14-year-old. Yeah, just don't have heroes. Yeah. I'll be a fan of anything. At all cost. Don't idolize anything ever. Only listen to AI-generated noise music. so yeah that's what they did it was dumb

that goes a lot longer than I had yeah that's a very long boo I enjoyed it okay so we have a new segment I gotta do a couple quick clicks so let's see if I can get this right so new segment enemy of odd

we're at one we're gonna get sued to ebbb I just got back from the corner store got this fucking hello kitty for you No, we can't get sued. That's less than a majority of the work, so. Yeah. I don't even think content ID would pick that up. That was less than 10 seconds.

So, yeah, Fein to the Pod sent us this story about Santa Monica Public Library System downsizing. And so now we have a new enemy of the pod, which is Bibliotheca LLC. I assume it's pronounced teca, but they got a TH in there. But it's like they wanted to make it continental. broadly continental so it's T-H-E-C-A right? Yeah, Bibliotheca. Bibliotheca. And so this program is called the Open Plus Pilot Project.

And basically what they did is they fired a bunch of people, closed down some branches, and now they're going to open it with a company. I believe it's 65 people lost their jobs for Bibliotheca Plus. Yeah, well, they already lost it. And then instead of hiring people back, they're going to just phone this to some kind of weird self-service model, which is, and it's crazy what they have to do. So they have to put in, like, automatic doors

that will let you in or out so that they can have COVID restrictions. So I guess the doors just, like, won't open if there's, like, a certain amount of people in the building, which is, how would you know that? What if the doors break? What if the Wi-Fi is down and the doors break? The doors probably are Wi-Fi-enabled.

They would have to be, yeah. So if the Wi-Fi goes down, yeah. What happens if my internet is out? It's just so crazy because so much of library, like pro-library talk has been like, the library is about all the services you get. And they're like, no, it's a bookhouse. Yeah. Here's how you can get in.

Let's back asswords this thinking. Like, yeah. And they're like, the copiers will be open. It's like, one, if you don't have someone that show people how the copier works, no one's copying shit. It sounds like you're saying copier. copier like copier

that's a that's a treat so you get the dogs um no it's like yeah it's um yeah library's always like we're more than books but like they're totally backwards ass thinking that to be like no we're just books you just want to come

to us for our books right like that awful what was it economist or Forbes where it's like an Amazon for books or something yeah that dude he well Amazon was originally for books if you might recall

I do yeah that article was not that long ago it was like last year yeah he's just like why do there's always that guy who comes out every few years every few months who's like why do we still need libraries we got Amazon

and now this is like just the manifestation of that like in physical form from a fucking library right Yeah, he was why I created the bad library takes Twitter, which, by the way, if you have bad library takes or library drama, just send them to add bad library takes. Oh, I didn't know that was an account that existed. Yeah, I haven't been updating it recently, but usually if I, it's just, if I find library drama, I'll retweet it. So we can remember these people's names.

So I wouldn't check up on that guy again later, and he's still writing like garbage for Forbes. but I'm pretty sure because he's like a Forbes special boy contributor which I think means he pays to be published in Forbes. He's a special boy. Yeah. He's got a wallet so people can hear him.

Basically, yeah. He's he's doing article processing charges for Forbes. So yeah, automated doors, automated people counting self, they would use the computers, printing existing self-checkouts. Yeah, no one's fucking printing

anything. Like those things are going to fucking break. There's going to be no one there to show them how it works. You probably have to pay, which is another thing that can break on those printers and copiers. Because like printers and copiers break it up as it is. It's like sort of the hallmark of printers and copiers in libraries. Is there always going to

be out of date and breaking all over the place. Yeah, especially if they have to accept credit card swipes and stuff. So if they don't sell reception, it's just not feeling like doing it today. You know, lots of reasons. We had to install them at my last job, and it was

not something they consulted the library on, but we were the ones who had to put up with it. Fancy that. But yeah, it's a grant program. So this is, this kind of reminds me of like what's going on in the UK where they're firing all their librarians and replacing them with volunteers, but

instead we're doing this by replacing it with a company who's an enemy of the pod. First official enemy. I don't have... I need something to close it out. I put in some come fully. Yes, manipulate our audience. Tell them how to feel.

Yeah, that's smarts. You smarted in a place where it smarts. Guys, I got to go. I smarted. I got to leave. That's Carrie's job. That's my job. I'm the one who smarts.

And the shirts. Hey, it happens to the best of us. Yeah. I've got smarts and shirts. Street shirts. You're haberdashery. So we're talking this week about information literacy because Carrie wanted to talk about something she knows a lot about. Yeah.

This is the only time we're ever going to talk about information literacy. Is it? It's a really broad topic. Like, why did you just say information literacy? I said I thought we were going to talk about like disinformation and fake news and shit like that. I don't know. For the record, Carrie, you're the only person's opinions I trust on this, like consistent. Like other people have good opinions too

But I'm like but what's Carrie saying? She's the one who knows I don't know if I really know But yeah Doing information literacy fake news and disinformation Specific Yeah because I mean like within scholarly communication You have subfields within scholarly communication

You can't just speak about scalcom with an umbrella Same thing goes with information literacy That's true Yeah Same thing goes for most things Exactly Mm-hmm Seth or Arthur, he's one of the kind in that, right?

Yeah. So not all information literacy is fake news stuff. No. It is a subset of information literacy. And there is, there are specific organizations we're going to talk about that do frame fake news and disinformation. Because I remember when the term fake news gained popularity and like everyone was kind of using it. Right. And I was immediately like, this is a.

bad term that's going to become like this is going to become a problem and this was before like Trump had picked up on it yeah um so as soon as he did everyone was like oh I see how this is a problem yep yeah but I was like from the beginning I'm this is a bad concept it's not well I mean and we're even seeing that happen with terms like doing your research and critical thinking like you see that a lot with like far right Q and on and conspiracy groups like yeah they are doing their research and doing critical thinking. They're doing a different type of research. Exactly. Like they read, they read, they read, um, they read news like they read Bibles.

Like so they've learned how to read through Bible study essentially. And that's, that's how they're doing research. Uh, there's been some really interesting research around that, um, not to overuse the term research, but that's what I do because I'm a research and instruction librarian. Yeah. It's, um, I, um, I, I remember getting into this briefly when I was teaching a lot of information literacy. And this was about 2015. So this is when I started getting involved with, like, anti-fascist activities. So when I was teaching, I would always use, I would always use, like, the rise of right-wing

propaganda in classes to explain, like, disinformation and misinformation. And so I was lucky because I was, like, ahead of the curve on, like, when we were going to start talking about this. because I remember having students who were like, those groups still exist. And I'm like, yeah, here's the SPLC map. Here's our local clan affiliate. Like they're down the road. Yeah.

Yeah, I started seeing that quite a bit around 2015. And because I actually taught a four credit class in the fall of 2015 called Critical Thinking. Funny enough, which was like the mandatory like first year freshman seminar at the college where I worked. I got recruited into doing that, which was. an interesting experience to say the least. I think ours was called strategic thinking. Yeah, that sounds about right. Never understood what the intention was.

I didn't really either. We used a lot from this guy, Stephen Brookfield, who he actually came to speak at the college I worked at. And it was, I don't know, he, like, pictured, like, he depicted himself as, like, this old punk guy. And I, like, looked him up, and he's, like, not really that fucking punk you know he's kind of a poser

if you know what I mean calling the poser cops yeah um this is the third two minutes to late night reference I've made on the podcast and I will not have to post on the Twitter so people understand um so I mean there was that sort of thing

going on so I kind of started to understand what was happening a little bit around that time and I was like this is something's happening here um what it is ain't exactly clear exactly yes. Anyway, so yeah, Norman Greenberg field. Anyway. So yeah, that kind of started around in 2015. And then like 2016 was like really when the shit hit the fan and like everyone in library land wanted to write about it. Right. And so like I read pretty much every academic article and even a few fringe articles and like handbooks and things like that written between essentially 2015. And so like I read pretty much every academic article and even a few fringe articles and like handbooks and things like that written between essentially 2015. And. and 2019 on the topic.

Could you tell us the difference between misinformation and disinformation? They have some technical definitions for it, and I can tell you the exact technical definition for it. Let me pull that up real quick, because I don't have it, like, memorized off the top of my head because there is a technical difference, and I outline it in the presentation I did for Capal. Yeah, I remember I was listening because there's an episode of you're wrong about that podcast, which is great. People should go listen to it on like losing your relatives to Fox News.

And they talk a lot about misinformation and disinformation in that and like lay out the differences. But, you know, I've slept since then. I don't remember. But that's where I learned there was actually a difference because I just hear people use it interchangeably. Yeah. Misinformation is technically false information that is spread without knowing it. is false. Disinformation is purposely spread false news or false information. So disinformation on purpose, misinformation accidental. And so most of the time it's like the

propaganda machine is doing the disinformation and then the people who believe that or when they spread it, it's misinformation because they think it that it's actually true. Yeah, I, you know, like there's an intent. Or this confirmation bias. Yeah. I think there's a lot of, I think there's kind of like some fine lines happening there between like, you know, should we put a name on everything like kind of thing. Um, I think I kind of resist that idea that we shouldn't label things. Like it's like the kind of like I think it exists on a spectrum to some extent.

Like if you want to get into the weeds on that, like I think that's part of some of the problem with, um, I guess how the literature and how librarians talk about this stuff like has problems, I guess is that instinct to like try to label things like oh is this misinformation or is this disinformation um rather than doing things on like kind of a spectrum because like okay um even if you are presented with other like with scientific fact and you still spread and you still share the information that you believe to be true is that still you know misinformation

disinformation whatever like does that still do those definitions still hold up when that is considered. Right. Because I feel like there's like, again, like this urge to be like, well, we want to make sure we're being clear about what we mean. This means this and this means this. But like in the effort of trying to make sure that people actually know what they mean, then you are setting up these like binaries that don't really exist.

Exactly. And so it's like a give and take of like, well, we need people to know what it is. But then it also restricts it too much. Right. And I think the tendency has been to enforce these really false binaries. It's not just for gender kids. Right, exactly, yeah. And I think that's been a big problem with just information literacy in general,

but especially with how libraries and media literacy and news literacy has treated this concept of fake news, information, misinformation, misinformation, post-truth society, whatever. Right, like, you know what? Always just annoys me all of the, I believe in science or we believe in science. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, even when like when like the, when like Biden even started doing that, like, oh, we're going to follow the science. And I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? Science is complicated.

Science is incredibly complicated. If you know anything about how scientific knowledge is developed and disseminate or spread and like becomes accepted. And especially around health care information, like it is a very complicated process. Like, and it takes. a lot. So even to like for them to say that like so for example what's just happened around outdoor mask mandates like the fact that we're going to relax outdoor masking is great and is new in my opinion. But to get the research to the place where we could even support that took a fucking lot like it took a fucking lot to get the research there to be able to have something that

could support that because even collecting data on transmission for outdoor contact was just so diffuse and so difficult to collect. And all the I believe science, I trust science people are going like, well, that's fake. And like ignoring the actual evidence of like, oh, we can't actually. Yeah. And saying, well, I'm going to wear my mask anyway because it's like good for you. Okay, cool. You can keep doing that.

But even if you're unvaccinated, it's actually, unless you're in a very crowded kind of super spreader situation. and you're a place where people are speaking loudly or drunk or whatever. Outside, you're relatively low to transmit. I really hesitated from weighing in too hard on this because with COVID, the science is, like I said, the science has changed very rapidly around this. If you pull anything on COVID literature, it's very rapidly being redacted. I've been helping a lot of people do COVID research in my job since I do medical librarianship. And in my Zotero file, if I have something, I've collected for students or something,

a lot, like my redacted warnings just show up every time I log in, like something new all the time for COVID research. And then like, you know, and a little tangent, like I was going to like a lot of the protests last year and I had one of those shitty gator masks. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And like I never heard of the protests turning into Super Spreader events. And that's like people screaming and being very close together.

And I never heard of like, oh, everyone does. died. Yeah. You know, because yeah. So yeah. Because most people were masked up. Yeah. And they were, they were very, they were very clear on at least most of the process I went to, the protest I went to as well. They were handing them out and making sure people were masked up and stuff like that. So I mean, yeah. You should also just wear a mask at a protest no matter what. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. If you're smart. If you're fucking smart, you wear a mask at a protest. Duh. Good offset. Yeah. Pandemic or no, wherever. basket of protest. Yep. And layers. Yeah. Nothing identifying. Yeah.

And turn your data off. Take the battery out of your cell phone. So we know real shit's going down. Don't get a burner phone though. Like assess your threat model. Yeah. I saw. I saw a TikTok where some lady was trying to get a sugar daddy.

So she got a burner for it. And she got like a hello kitty burner phone. It's like shaped like a cat's head. It flips open, like a hamburger phone. Good. It was so good. She was like, where's my money? I want to talk to a sugar daddy on a hello kitty phone.

Are you fucking kidding me? That's the only way to do it. Yeah, I guess so. What if I had a coffin phone for my sugar dad? Hell yeah. Do they make those? I don't know. I'm not really interested in that.

I'm disinterested in performing the emotional labor required to be a sugar baby. Yeah. No, I mean, it seems like a bad idea all around. I'd do it. I mean, yeah, just, you know, go, just go old school and just marry rich. That's the way most people get money. Or intergenerational wealth and exploitation through capitalism. You can always do that.

I meant people who didn't have wealth, get it. Yeah. Oh, okay, yeah, I guess that makes sense. Mary into it, the American success tradition. Mary into the capitalist exploitation and through intergenerational wealth. Cool. Yeah. I was going to say if you want some more about how science works for further reading.

Please man explain science to me. No, I was going to say you can read the Stakem's thread responding to Neil de Grass Tyson. Oh, yeah, that was good. I love that. I was like, please, thank you for putting Neil de Crasse Tyson in his place because fuck Neil de Grass Tyson, number one. Number two, he's annoying. He's no Carl Sagan.

Carl Sagan was really good about, Carl Sagan was really good about talking about science in a way that was like accessible, but also explain the processes and the history of it really well. I also just find it fascinating that he wrote contact, which does a lot about with faith. Yeah. And so I thought it was fascinating that like Carl Fucking Sagan. Yeah. Carl Sagan was also a stoner.

He's great. Yeah. RIP dude. Yeah. Hope you like some moon dust now. Yeah. Carl Sagan was a real one. He was a real one. Isn't that right, Arthur?

I have a Carl Sagan pen that I wear on my jacket. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah. Keep him in my turtlenecks. Him and his turtlenecks in my memory. Yeah, it's that like kind of thing of like you can't like over, science is very complicated and then you can't, oversimplifying it really doesn't do its service. And it really exists in a lot of gray areas, too.

And especially when it comes to, there's a lot of gradations when it comes to how we prove certain things, how we gain evidence, how we communicate it. I think Bill Nye has also done a really good job of being an effective science communicator as well, especially to children and adults. Speaking, I have a question for you then with like, at least like with fake news and disinformation and misinformation and misinformation and stuff related to science. So because I'm Buddhist, I am often around new agey woo-woo. Oh, yeah. And there's, like, very like, like, where it's nowhere in Buddhism that you should do all this stuff. Oh, yeah, no, there's none of it. Yeah.

And it's like, so there's a lot of alternative medicine stuff. And like, you know, in the more like tantric versions of Buddhism, there's like the subtle body stuff. And like, you know, a whole point of Buddhism is like, it doesn't matter if it's real or not. But there's like, like, just like I see a lot of like turning towards, well, complimentary with, but like on like Arjuveda and traditional Chinese medicine like together. And so sort of like the ways that we do a science and know things, like that's the epistemology. Right. And I was just wondering if like the sort of like Western, you know, waspy colonialist. ideas we have of how do you know things and how do you find truth? Like, what does truth mean

and how do you get there? And then also conversely, like, misinformation, disinformation. How does that relate with non-Western, you know, non-waspy views of this? Like, I didn't know if maybe there was any research about that kind of thing. Because that's also, like, in the Q&ON and, like, there's a lot of that shit. I think there's some interesting ways of looking at this. And I don't, like, there's a few threads that I think this can go off into. And I think some can be like really kind of cool and interesting. Like, especially in how we critique fake news and like the way that fake news instruction and media literacy and news literacy looks at truth and things like that.

And it's the way they look at truth and information. And it's a very positivistic Western-based. approach to information and knowledge and truth, whereas, like, I think there's room for those more, I guess, like, non-privileged views in the academy for assessing, like, how knowledge is formed and discussing how knowledge and ideology and truth is formed socially. And I think some of that addresses like what you're talking about in terms of like non-Western traditions and making room for those and talking about information and like I didn't think this speaks a little bit to like who we trust and how we trust it and that like bullshit of like when when you enter

like a classroom to teach they're like a dot edu and a dot gov site is the best site and it's like okay look at all these publisher websites where you're supposed to get your academic journals what do those websites end in it's dot fucking calm okay like don't don't say these things don't fucking say these things because the the extension of the website doesn't fucking matter and that's your bullshit western perspective like the dot i oh yeah that's not even like is all the tech stuff and also well they've changed that means like india or something they've actually in I think 2010 or 2014, they changed the standardization. They've wiped out the standardization for extensions on on domains. And I mean, it was always that anyone could register for any domain ending that they wanted to anyway with the exception of dot goven.edu. So you could register for any kind of dot org that you wanted to because you could pay money for it. That was just an ending that anyone could pay for. So it really, it doesn't mean. anything. Right, because like, again, like, dot I. Oh, that's technically for a certain country,

but it's sort of associated with tech stuff now. Yeah, yeah. And that's just like maybe what tech people have adopted as one of their extensions because it was an open extension that you could take. It's a binary. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, because you could take it. Like, that was just like, they opened up like the, there's a, there's a podcast about it that I listened to one time about like, basically when they basically when they're like, you know, making the internet and figuring out what can the internet be? I think ISO standardized it to like three letters. And then for the US essentially, it was three letters.net.com.d.d.org.gov. And I think maybe one or two others. And then I think it was around mid-20, maybe 2010, somewhere in there. 2010, somewhere around

there. They're like running out of domains or something like that. I don't know. Like the domain options, not looking good. There is like some kind of. case that came before patents or internet standards or something like that. Don't quote me on any of this. This is like wild random access memory pulled from Carrie's brain, something she randomly remembers. And so they changed, they allowed for more extensions on websites. So you could have like dot bride for like your wedding business or whatever or dot FM or dot for

like an audio. Yeah, dot gay one. Yeah, dot gay for your gay ass website. site. I should get that for library punk. Yeah. Yeah. Librarypunk.

Yeah. I was going to get that WTF. Yeah. So yeah. So like you can get dot WTF or like all these other extensions, uh, to, um, register your domain under now because of this. So it's meaningless. Yeah.

It's an aesthetic choice. It's an aesthetic choice. Exactly. So your extension for your website literally means jack fuck shit. Yeah. I had a student using Heritage Foundation one time. and he says, well, it's a dot net. So like, is that fine?

And I was like, no, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Extensions don't matter. So, I mean, like, these are these, like, fucking terrible ass, bad internet habits that professors try to, like, drill into students and, like, bad high school teachers try to drill into students that are, like, these bad Western practices that we have to try to break. I mean, that's just one dumb example that, you know, we talk about.

But it's also all this, like, binary. thinking too that like something's true or it's not and it's not assessing the kind of I guess spectrum of truth that something in have or like when you talk about things like something being scientific or like supporting the science or like dealing in hard truth like take something like the weather for example we love a weather report and take something like the weather channel they report you know the forecasts but they report all of these like incredible extreme weather disasters, right? But they don't talk about like the human and environmental impact of them at all.

There's like no scaling out of like what climate change is doing to our planet at all. It's like wow, it's another another hot one today. Yeah. Another record breaker. Another hurricane on Puerto Rico. Another island decimated like. Oopsie. Oopsies.

Like, you know, Puerto Rico still hasn't recovered. from Hurricane Maria, like, and didn't like another one just hit again? Like, I own or whatever. I don't know. I'm not keeping traffic Puerto Rican hurricanes very well. Sorry. I wasn't on Twitter for two months.

Oh, I'm out of Twitter jail now. Yeah. Oh, congratulations. Dad is out on parole. Yeah. We should have cake. I don't even like cake. Why am I saying we just have pie?

Fuck, we should have pie. Yes. Library punk. We should have cheesecake like on Golden Girls. I do love cheesecake. Yeah, me too. But I mean, it's like things like that. I don't even know what I was talking about.

I just say that a lot. Yeah. Well, the ideology part of it is pretty important because a lot of, you know, I always keep reposting that image from like the 30s. It's like stop reading capitalist newspapers. because you are going to get a certain amount of ideological bias in the most straightforward reporting, even, you know, even in like the non-opinion section.

Like I saw not that long ago. It's like, what you're choosing to report, period, is a, I mean, like, and I don't, I think, like, students come into college and they, like, don't even know how to read a newspaper, essentially. They, like, think a newspaper is full of opinions. They're not wrong. Yeah. I mean, yeah, they're not wrong.

But it's like, I can't talk to you about, like, the nuances of, like, what's involved in news media in a fucking hour in a fucking hour and about like the capitalist landscape of news media within an hour because I only have so much time to talk to you and I don't do too much talking about news with folks anyway but like you know when you talk about it um since we're talking about the news uh let me what's the sorry I'm going to find that question that I want to repeat this because this was something that someone asked during Q&A I didn't. for a roundtable at Claps, which is, this is from Romel Espinal, friend of the pod. I don't know if he actually listens or not, but he's a cool dude.

Friend of a carry. So I'm wondering to problematize teaching about fake news is that the main U.S. liberal ruling class has been decentered by insurgent right-wing elite who want to be the dominant power. That means it calls into question what news is. So does teaching combating fake news mean that librarians are fighting for the old liberal capitalist way of living? Yeah. What is the ideological project we're engaging in by fighting disinformation and misinformation?

Yeah. And by pushing forward, you know, oh, CNN and New York Times and whatever are neutral. The fucking bell curve thing. Yeah. The vomiting man chart that's copyrighted. And actually in order to, so the way that chart is made, for those of you following it, home, the way that chart is made is by votes. And the way that you get votes to vote on the alignment of media on that chart is to pay. So you get a dollar per vote.

Wow. The Otero Media chart. Yeah. The bell curve thing about media alignment chart. Like I've had people outside of librarianship. Like there's this one Twitter mutual I have who just like critical theory and like psycho analysis and stuff. And I remember he had posted a question about it. And I pointed him towards like you because I knew like, because he was like, does anyone critique these?

Like what's the opinions on these? Because he just like wasn't sure, but had a bad vibe about him. Like they're terrible. And my colleague and friend can tell you more about it. And so like people outside of our field. Because like I know sometimes it's like, oh, no one outside of librarianship knows or cares or things about this. or like in general stuff in our field. But yeah.

You hear people talk about it all the time now. Like, oh, can we save news media? Like, can we, you know, the fight for like, you know, it was like all over, you know, Biden's campaign. Like the fight for America's soul and stuff like that. Oh, and there's still kids in cages. I guess that's our soul. Yeah. Yeah.

We still got kids in cages. So don't worry. They're nicer cages, though. Mm-hmm. The Wall Street Journal is in the crime. Harris's book. Yeah. What?

Yeah, that was fucked up. The Wall Street Journal is in the green square that says news, but it's also in the yellow, it's overlapping with the yellow square that says fair representation of the news. This is one of those charts I found. And like a lot of these are like ABC News, so that's Disney News. Look up, um, look up Vanessa Otero media chart. I did.

I couldn't find one that wasn't like 10 picks. pixels by 10 pixels. Let me send you the website. Oh, wait, I got it. Okay. So, yeah, Wall Street Journal is in the middle. Newsner, News, I think it's, yeah. Of course it's in the, of course it's that one.

Jacobin is in highly partisan. I mean, yeah, but it's like I feel and then I feel like people are saying that partisan automatically equals bad. It's like obviously like Jacobin's going to like be leftist. That's the point of it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like is it good to be centrist in these situations?

I think that's the idea. And we don't talk enough about what like centrism actually means. Exactly. And we don't talk about what right wing means in these discussions. Like we don't talk about what that right wing typically means like not dealing with facts. Like racist, Christian nationalist, centrist. kind of things. Like we don't talk about what what those

alignments actually mean when it comes means when it comes down to it. We just say left wing, right wing and let you figure out what that actually means. And that it's equivalent. Yeah. Yeah. Like there's a false equivalence either. Like you're getting the same quality kind of things like you know, like it's that whole

like Antifa and the proud boys are the same thing. No they don't like proud boys don't fucking masturbate first of all. Don't trust them. Don't touch your junk. That's pretty, fuck up. Yeah, because I know, like, inevitably when those charts go around Twitter, it's, there's the critique of, oh, that's not actually centrist or, oh, that's not actually that.

And it's not even, like, it's putting into question. It's not putting into question, like, it's putting into question where these things are placed and not what does it mean that things are placed in certain sections of this? and what is that communicating? Or the fact that like we're even making a chart rather than teaching people to actually evaluate information, like, or to think about information and how it's produced and like the capitalist network that creates information and creates it for a reason. Yeah. And this mindset still permeates to journal publishing, academic journal publishing, because they're like, well, how can anyone trust a preprint or post print and not the version of record? And the difference between a post print and the version of record, by the way, is branding it slapped on it.

That's it. Yep. It's the only difference between a post print version. There was a research study I read recently that said like it's like 83% the same. You can imagine probably like formatting and typos. Yeah. Yeah. Essentially that's where they found most of the differences.

I think that's that study was looking at the effect of peer review. So pre peer review to post peer review. Yeah. If I'm thinking the same one. Yeah. It may have been that. Post prints have been. reviewed. They've been edited. The only difference is the brandy gets slapped on. Yeah. So. Hell,

I submitted to a journal for my second. So I have two published articles. And for one of them, it's in library philosophy and practice. And it's peer reviewed. And I didn't get any comments back. It was just like a submitted it. And then one day it was like, congrats. It's published. I was like, and it was all lies. All right. I was like, okay. Hey, you really pulled one over. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it's perfect. Yeah. I was like, who is it? It's another so cool scandal.

Yeah. And then you have the, again, like, I think we mentioned this in our SCALCOM open access episode, like the people who are peer reviewers and will automatically, like, not accept things because it's competition or something. Or also just a lot of sexism. If you know the name of the person you're reviewing, more likely to reject women. or give like non-helpful critique. So yeah.

But the answer to that is media literacy and information literacy. Like you've got to know where this is coming from. Well, I know in whether you've got to evaluate if it's true or not. The framework. You know, we need a little drop for saying the framework, the frames. The whole like question authority is in there. Well, it's not question authority. its authority is constructed and contextual.

Right. Question authority would be way more rad, by the way. That would be better. Like, I do like that it points out that like, oh, by the way, authority is constructed and stuff, but I feel like it could push it further. Yeah. Because then I still hear people going like peer reviewed, peer reviewed, peer reviewed. Oh, exactly.

Yeah. That's the authority that is contextual. And part of the thing about being a classroom teacher is like you have, like, part of the thing about being like a guest lecture so much of the time is you have to negotiate so much between the bullshit assignment by the professor and what you know is better what your expertise is. And so like there's a lot of balancing that goes on.

And, you know, you can teach them what you know is good pedagogically and what is good information literacy. But at the end of the day, what there's, what's on their rubric is going to end up dictating what happens. Yeah. And I mean, There's some extent for collaboration, but some people are more open to that than others. That's just from my experience of doing this for, you know, however many years now.

Yeah, I've been out of this world for a while. And so it was, I'm starting to, like, remember things from when I was working with students because I really don't work with students anymore. Yeah, in grad school, I did so much instruction. And then even at Utah, we had, like, the first year experience stuff. And like you went in four times a semester instead of just like once, like you were assigned to a class. And I worked with the same professor for two years. So like I did a lot of instruction. And I just like don't do it anymore. But like I didn't take any instruction courses. Like I, I didn't have them when I was in school. So yeah. It's like we learned to do it in like my reference. And then like even like as like my assistantship, we still like had to read like pedagogy like how to do pedagogy and like how to build stuff. into your syllabus and your plans and then stuff. But I also just like, that's not something I've

kept up on. Yeah, I'm entirely self-taught. Well, I mean, I had a few mentors sort of, but like everything I know about really teaching, like I'm actually entirely self-taught because I was in a job where I needed to do it and like it wasn't really happening very easily. So I just like sat down and did the homework and figured it out. Yeah, I learned under the wise tutelage of Jessica Moyer. Cool. She does a lot of stuff about, like, adult reading habits. Yeah.

She's cool. Yeah. I learned under my own. Yeah, mine started when I was deconverting from evangelicalism. So, those were I started. Yeah. That is a heavy. It's a heavy.

a lot of work. It takes a while. Yeah, so that was how kind of my information literacy started, and I got into sort of like science discussions a little bit more, and I got into, because I'm like a big religion head anyway. Yeah. So like I still like studying religion quite a bit. So that was kind of like my coping mechanism while I was going through this process. And so a lot of it was like learning higher criticism, which is just, you know, historical and materialist critiques and textual critiques of texts. And so, yeah.

That reminds me of, because, like, I know, like, I see, like, all the Q and on stuff in the latter half of our notes and stuff. But I feel like something that's starting to get talked about a little more is that, like, the type of people who, I mean, actually was a lot of white women doing Q&ON, but, like, the sort of, like, the atheist pros that used to be, like, very, like, Um, like, oh, they love to like, yeah, they love to like make, they're like, yeah, we're going to make, we'll make fun of Christians. Like, yeah. And then they have just turned fashy. Um, and like they're the ones that are sort of in these far right. Yeah. Forchand buddies. Forchand boys.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's like that it's all of the same sort of, um, like techniques of looking things up and being critical about stuff. But it's like the framework, well, not that, not that framework, not capital F framework, but I guess like the principles behind it, like, it was never about actual like, oh, science is better than religion. It was about being right over other people. Yeah. Yeah.

And dunkin on people. Yeah. I mean, that's what most of our public shaming on Twitter is. nobody actually gives a shit. It's about like showing that you're right and better and someone else is wrong and less than you. But that was what got me so interested in sort of information and like argumentation because if you're trying to talk to someone who is like, for instance, disagreeing with you and you're trying to like convince them, what are the techniques you would use? And so if you use, for instance, a bad argument or another bad argument, they will

they will do something where they just reject all of your arguments. It's a fallacy, but it's something your brain does naturally. And there's also a thing called a worldview defense. So if you ask a question in such a way that challenges their fundamental worldview, so usually that's like a religion, but it could be like capitalism just as easily. They do a worldview defense, which is basically shutting down. They just shut you out. They're not going to listen to you anymore. So this is kind of like how to talk to people kind of training that I was interested in because also I was working with students who, you know, were, you know, we weren't a great college. We had a lot of students who really weren't ready for college. And I've got one good info-lit story. So we had a student,

I wasn't here for this story, but my fellow librarian told me about this. So they had, I think it was the intro course or something, or it was a criminal justice course. And they had to talk about a group. And this student wasn't from the United States. English wasn't her first language, I don't think either. And so you had to pick a group to write about. And she wrote about the Ku Klux Klan. and all of her sources were from the clan. So she described the clan entirely in her words. And the professor was like, he went to the library and was like, uh, we got a problem.

And we need to like deal with this and like explain, you know, what the clan is to her and how to, how to, you know, evaluate news sources. And then of course she was just like, you know, a gasp when she figured it out. But yeah, that's what happens when you take things at face value. And she just did no lateral reading. I don't even know how you could get to the clan materials without finding anti-clan materials. Because when you Google it, that's probably the first thing that comes up. And if you're told not to use Wikipedia. I mean, our views of what the Nazi party was like, because it's still a thing, you know, fucking hate Illinois Nazis and stuff.

But like our entire view of what Nazism and the Nazi party was like is because of triumph of the will, which itself was. was propaganda and the party wasn't like that at all. And so the propaganda still works. Like that is exactly how they wanted us to view them and it still works. And it's taking it at face value and like using their own language to describe them. And it shapes how we talk about them to this day. One thing I've actually been really interested in lately, and I'm a lot less interested in, like, I guess, libraries and librarians doing fake news and media literacy. But, like, I'm really interested in, like, the aesthetics of the far right. I'm so into aesthetics right now, too. Like, my brother sent me a picture recently from where he lives in central Missouri of someone with a Confederate flag. with like a silhouette of like a naked lady with flames behind her on the Confederate flag.

Mm-hmm. Really good. I saw a lot of T-shirts like this in high school. Yeah, yeah. I almost, yeah, I mean, we had a few things like that, a lot of trucks like that. When I lived with my parents back in Missouri, a lot of truck nuts in my hometown growing up. Oh, love some truck nuts. Yeah, a lot of truck nuts.

Yeah, a lot of truck nuts. Has anyone gotten a truck vulva? Oh, man. I don't have a truck. I once bought this bumper sticker from a trans sex worker that said, Sucking Dick paid for this truck. But I don't remember where it went. Because I used to have a pickup truck, but I never put anything on it.

Oh, damn. I know, I know. I just wanted to get this awesome sex worker money. I mean, yeah, that's like, that's just like a good sticker. And like, I feel like the responsibility of that sticker is like, oh, man, this is such a good sticker. Where do I put it? Yeah. Put it on a magnet.

And then I was in a head-on collision in that truck. And anyway, so I'm glad I didn't put it on that truck. Oh, I was going to ask something or say, oh, with like the aesthetics of the far rate. A little plug for my favorite podcast, Bad Gays, their very first episodes about Ernst Strom, the gay Nazi. And in it because like a huge thing in the Nazi party at that time was the masculinism. which was sort of like, you know, women are gross and will suck away your life force. But so, like, twinks are all so bad. That's a lot like the prod boys not masturbating.

Yeah. So it was like, you know, they were gay with each other. But it wasn't for any, like, genuine attraction reasons. I mean, some of them, like, you know, obviously, I'm not saying there wasn't any attraction in their human sexuality is complicated. But it was in a total, like, aesthetic. thing, like, and it influenced, like, the way that they dressed and, like, the way that they groomed themselves, which is, like, still a thing. Anytime anyone fashy shows up, you always get people thirsting over them because they look good. Well, that was, like, part of a Tom of Finland's or, well,

it wasn't not, it was, it was the Finnish, it was the Finnish military that when he served. But, I mean, like, yeah, that was part of his deal was, like, Finnish military officers. I mean, you go to the leather archives, and in their, like, women in leather section, there's a, like, a mannequin with an SS hat on. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like, it's a huge thing in, like, queer leather scenes. Yeah, cool. Yeah, also kind of snuck into early years of punk, a lot of Nazi imagery.

Oh, so much. Yeah, because it was shocking. And also, yeah, yeah, very shocking. I mean, there were Nazi punks. And also, Nazi punks, fuck. off. Nazi punks. Nazi punks. Go watch Green Room. You don't tell people not to spit on the ceiling.

So if you have a song telling Nazi punks to get out, it means there were Nazi punks that needed to get out. Exactly. Yeah, you don't just write that song because you want to. Write that song because you need to. Yeah. So what's this moving forward critically that you put in? Oh, that was, oh, so that's like a really good syllabus of, this is like the one kind of, it's the critical disinfor, studies syllabus, which actually does, it's one of the only things I've ever seen that actually does a pretty decent job of looking at the kind of different components involved in what you would call it fake news, disinformation conspiracy studies. Because they actually look at like the racist, sexist, homophobic, white Christian nationalists, like Islamic phobic factors. involved in fake news.

They actually are afraid. They're not afraid to name it, which is what you see a lot in the way that librarians talk about fake news. They're just so afraid to name what it actually is, which is this very specific thing that like it's not a both sides issue. I've always said that like we're so bad at talking about this because it's so not a both sides issue. Yeah, like is there bullshit leftist?

misinformation, obviously. But it's such a minority. And it doesn't even have the same intention. No, it's so, like, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it doesn't have the same malicious intention. Like, yeah, there's some bullshit in the left for sure. Like, there's a lot of sexist pieces of shit for sure. Um, um, but. And the remnants of Tumblr feminism. Yeah. It's getting pretty bad. I, I fucking hate that promising young woman won screenplay. I'm glad I didn't win anything else. I don't pay attention to that stuff anymore. I sadly care about movies too much. Yeah.

So I mean like, yeah, the critical disinformation study syllabus, this came out a few months ago. And this is like the one thing I've ever read or seen that I thought actually put together something really interesting, like talking about like, talking about like dismissing the myth of the epistemically fulfilling past. Like saying like actually there's never been like a time of truth. This is actually an ongoing problem, which is a great point that. Actually, when I presented my first presentation, I co-presented with Kevin Seber and he did a really similar presentation about how like post truth, fake news, whatever, we want to call it. It's not a new thing. Like, he did a really great presentation about that because both he and I kind of collaborated initially. There's another, like talking about race epistemology.

I can't say epistemologies. You just did. I'm like tongue tied. Then also it talks about like the global perspective on it. So like the fact that like it persists elsewhere as well, like especially with Facebook's reach in countries like Myanmar where they've had like massive Rohingya genocide, things like that where they basically call the internet Facebook because of how much influence and reach Facebook has had in that country. Also with misinformation about the Uyghurs and China, for example, they are not. China's not our fucking comrades. Whenever you talk about socialism and communism, you are not talking about fucking China. That is not the same fucking thing. Do not like, do not mention Mao positively

around me. I mean, he was a librarian. But he also like genocide in Tibet. So. Also not cool. Also not cool. Japan, I mean, is a another one. Like they've also always sort of had a problem with like culty conspiracy. Oh yeah. That's right. Like the the the the Alme was that what is a the AUM, like the gas, the nerve, whatever, bombing. Yeah, in like the subway. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, that was a cult. That's right. And they're like really into QAnon right now. And like even like you watch like Akira that has a cult in the background.

Yeah. Like people always forget the cult in Akira. But yeah, Japan's huge with like culty conspiracy stuff. But yeah, they also talk about like really specifically about like anti-black violence, specifically about like, you know, really specific issues like things are related to social services, crime, the Black Panther Party, black liberation, and identity and some other things. so and even COVID-19 and thinking past fake news even so yeah it's actually pretty good and even talking about like the the capitalist side of things a little bit more too so yeah I'm like looking through all these like modules yeah the modules are really good yeah like if someone were to like I feel like you know it's such a complicated topic and I just really hate the way that like librarians have tried to make it too simple that's always been

my problem is like I think so much of the work that we try to tackle in addressing the way as a person who teaches so much of the work I try to do and try to tackling how information, how to teach people about information and because that's what I see my job is that I'm teaching people about information and how to understand it better, right? And how to communicate it better and things like that. Like it's a whole picture kind of thing, right? And there's all these kind of facets to it. And one of the most frustrating things is that it's such a complex, nuanced thing that I'm, you know, librarians, especially instructional librarians, are so often forced to oversimplify what we need to. And that really affects the quality of education that people

are getting. And especially with budget cuts and things like that, we're just not able to cover. And so like we've been forced to oversimplify. So, like, we've been forced to oversimplify so. many things for so long. And that's why we're stuck with documents like the framework and things like that rather than coming to more nuanced understanding of information and being like experts on information, which is what we should be. We're kind of relegated to like relying on these kind of like documents and standards for applying to, you know, one shots and shit like that. Yeah, because it's like, it's not that I necessarily disagree with what the framework. No, I don't either. It's got a lot of good stuff, but it's like, it doesn't. It does, it does, it does things better than the fucking

standards did. Yeah, it's like, it's all of the, it's like the method and even the sort of approach, but without, um, the, like, the intention is just, you can do information literacy and it's like, it's like, it's a series of, it's a series of, like, behaviors and, uh, habits and things like, it's kind of like, their portals essentially for students. Yeah. to observe in students to kind of like basically initiate good information behavior. And like, I mean, I hate doing measure. I hate like all the measurey. I'm not an assessment person.

I don't I don't get turned on by assessment. I fucking hate rubrics. I'm not that kind of person. I just like want to fucking teach and like have good vibes. So like, I don't know. Come on, man. Like, yeah, come on, man. Just like let me teach.

but I know that that's part of like the shit too is that like we got to you know do cop shit too sometimes yeah because it's like and I know they're not doing it exactly the same way but like again a lot of this stuff I see and like the things that we try to instill when we do instruction and teach information literacy it's like because people um just because I know like oh you're talking about fake news and misinformation disinformation right now it's going to go back to Q and on that's right now But because people seem to think that they're all stupid and that they are just blind, like, blind faith kind of where they just aren't looking into things for themselves. And I'm like, they're probably more rigorous in their like methods. They spend so much time and energy on this stuff.

That's the thing. It's just that like the like, I don't know what they're mad. The thing for me is they're mad about the right things. They're just looking in the. wrong direction, right? Yeah, and it's like the methods that they're even using are the ones that we teach, but it's like when we teach them, it's we don't put, I cannot think of the word that I'm trying to think, because I don't want to just be like, let's teach leftist propaganda. It's kind of about directing the energy to some extent. Yeah. Yeah, because it's like, you know, they're doing it,

but they're like the like end goal of it. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's talking about motivation. to some extent, yeah. We don't talk about ideology and we don't talk about material analysis. Yeah, and it's like, like Dan Olsen, I know I mentioned this in the Discord chat. He's got this great video essay called In Search of Flat Earth that sort of goes into, and a couple of the like left two video essayists have done Flat Earth or why do people believe this, you know, why do people follow these kinds of things? And Dan Olson picks up because a lot of the others are like,

like, oh, you know, they are right to feel like something's wrong and skepticism is good. Yeah, skepticism is very healthy. But yeah, what Dan Olson points out, especially with Q&ON, because it's like, it's kind of like with doomsday cult, it's like they'll give a date of this is when the rapture is going to happen and then it doesn't happen. And somehow that doesn't sway people into thinking it's incorrect and how it's like the, you know, they're doing all these methods and it's quite rigorous research. But they've already decided on what they want the end goal to be. And so, like, it's already what they look at is already shaped by it has to end up in this one way that simplifies. Because it can't be all these actual complex systems that we are a part of. It has to be some anti-Semitic conspiracy where people are just doing blood libel and we're calling it different things.

But it's just blood libel. It's a crome to keep me young. Yeah, totally not. Particularly with religious movements, if you're afraid, your critical thinking skills go down exponentially. Like, even if you know you're being lied to, if the person can make you afraid in some way. So usually that's like threats of hell or something,

or like shunning from the community. But yeah, if you can be made afraid in a certain moment, your ability to think critically goes down almost instantly. And when you stop, even if you stop holding those beliefs, the way that you process information and stuff, that it stays. I know, like, you know, not to get personal in Maine, but, like, I have C-P-T-S-D, and it severely affects my ability to do, like, critical thinking and stuff because I was never taught, because I was, one, I was really religious, but two, you know, other things. It was never, this is why this is wrong or incorrect. It's

punishment do it the right way, why don't you? So it's like, you know, already sort of just the way that, you know, we raise children and like the way that we like how we have such like a puritanical disciplinary like view of interacting with each other, that already like set this up to fail a lot of the times. Like it's hard to unlearn. these behaviors, even if, like, your heart has unlearned it. That's why you get so much leftist stuff that's basically just, like, Christian right, anti-sex bullshit now is because people never, like, they have their hearts in the right place, but they've never unlearned the, yeah.

What was it being, being under five foot four is suss or something? Yeah, no, it's because, like, it's that it's pedophilic. Oh, if two people are close, then that's incest. If you have more than a three-year age gap, it doesn't matter if you're adults, or that all age gaps are automatically bad. And that like, this is going to, like, that like a 17-year-old and a 20-year-old is bad. But as soon as that 17-year-old turns 18, that it's magically okay now or something, like, there's a lot of, like, people putting these, like, hard and fast rules on, like, how they view how people relate to each other. Because of all this puritanical bullshit that influences the way that. that we interact with information and our critical thinking skills in this country, particularly.

And this was amazingly on Twitter, not on Tumblr. Yes, it was on Tumblr. It wasn't us for once. It started on Tumblr and it started on live journal even before that. It's always been a thing in fandom spaces, actually, because it's people getting mad at other people's ships and trying to find ways to be like your ship's wrong. And then on Tumblr, there was a lot of, like, that's where a lot of people learned their politics and their feminism from. But turfs were also on Tumblr, and Tumblr tended to not have any nuance in its thinking. Like, I've been on Tumblr since 2009, and that was where I learned my politics, and I'm unlearning that shit still.

And it was on Tumblr, and now it's, you know, Tumblr got rid of porn. And so all of those people moved to Twitter. And that's why it's on Twitter and people are seeing it now, so they fucking took porn off a Tumblr. But wait, there's porn on Twitter? Yeah, no, I am, I'm friends with like a few sex workers and you can just put full on like genitals. You can put unsimilated sex. I thought I saw some nipples on the other day. Yeah, no.

When did Twitter get nipples? I'm friends with quite a few like trans sex workers. I didn't know Twitter got nipples. It's like you haven't, you haven't, you know. I really haven't lived. If your feed's not full of like your friend's asshole, then, you know. Really haven't lived yet. Yeah, exactly.

When you told me to look up Peter, remember, I looked, I just searched. his name and there was a there's a guy with his name who's extremely horny who comments on so many like dudes with big hog videos good and so I'm like is this your friend I don't I didn't know if this this is his account it's his after dark account yeah I don't know what Peter does after dark I hope it's him yeah every time I search someone's name it basically that happens there's some horny person with that name and that's where I find out of a porn. I am the horny person. You're the horny twin?

Yeah, I'm already the horny one. So, but, but yeah, no, that's like I, because I was like a teenager in 2009, like I was like a sophomore going into a junior in high school when I first got on Tumblr, I've, I've seen some shit. And I've seen all of the political waves. I couldn't imagine having Tumblr in high school. That's, I had dial up in high schools. This was like first wave of Tumblr.

Like it was still a baby website. Yeah, I had a friend. Don't like the deep magic at me witch. I had a friend who was, I had some friends who were really into Tumblr in 2008. So yeah, I remember when it was quite young. This is babby. But yeah, no, a lot of people, especially my age,

that's where we learned politics from and how we learned how to interact with information and be critical about it and like social justice frameworks and stuff. It was just all reblogging. And it doesn't like a lot of people criticize the way that like Twitter encourages interaction. Tumblr's not much better even though like you don't have any limits or anything. Tumblr, you'll still get posts from 2010 showing up. And so it's a lot of outdated information. People can write like essays saying while someone's wrong. And there's a lot of like if you don't re-blog this like then you're bad or or like. Like, you know, if there's some sort of like, you know, as a trans person, like, you know, I'll see a lot of trans people on Tumblr posting something. It's like cis people, you better re-blog this kind of stuff. And that's still happening. So it's like not just a Twitter thing.

It's not just a Facebook thing. And that's where a lot of political discussion was happening because that's where I learned my politics was Tumblr. And yeah, yeah, it's messy. and I'm still on learning it. And now they're all on Twitter. And then all, you know, those people now are old enough to have jobs in journalism and activism and nonprofit stuff. And this is, yeah, that's why there's a lot of bullshit that happens.

And like at a higher level now. I mean, it's always happened. But like that's seeping into like the professional sphere now because those people are adults. I was in college when I got on Tumblr. So it was, I was already like pretty. good at uneducating myself on things and taking things critically. But I think the place where that's happening now is TikTok. I think I'm now seeing.

I'm seeing a lot of young people on there, you know, being like. Pointing at the thing. Yeah. And they'll just be like, well, it's even more like, because you can respond to comments with a video. Yeah. So it's almost as easy as reblogging. So if someone comments and says something, you can just go boop, boop, and go,

okay, here's why this person's wrong. and it shows the comment and you just start like it's basically a re-blog. So it's really easy to like have a back and forth. I've been tempted to do that before. TikTok is just so mystifying to me. Like I think this is why I like have to quit the fake news thing. Also I'm like done with it. But.

Oh really? Yeah. I like I think I've like kind of exhausted myself with it. Because like I never hear like you know even like the experts that's like I never like what do we do about it. people are just like I think like there needs to be like I you know I think we need to take a really nuanced take with it like if you're going to do it be nuanced about it like acknowledge what's going to be going on also I think like really keep especially for like so much of it happens in like freshman comp classes right um and I hate so much of like the way freshman comp classes

work where it's like the controversial or the controversial topic paper like that's a whole series of lib guides just for that assignment i hate that assignment that assignment needs to die because like you're forcing students to be emotional about something like um doing that kind of high school and you're gay and they have to you know you see people arguing in class yeah whether game or not doing that like kind of high stakes thing is just like not not like cultural sensitive, I think. Like, you're, you're doing a lot to invalidate students in your classroom

when you do shit like that. Yeah. And it doesn't really work as an assignment either. Because what I would usually do when students like that would come to me, because they're like, I need a topic. And I would say, okay, we have a database that's really good for this, which is Gail's information in context or whatever. Opposing viewpoints in context.

Opposing viewpoints in context. Which is a terrible type of data, which is a terrible name for a database, because it like it frames a viewpoint as a binary right right because like you're supposed to present opposing viewpoints like as if they're a binary right that's why like the one it what is it the congressional CQ researcher Suki researcher CQ two researcher fucks it's so good yeah we we subscribe to that fine product at my place of business it's fine product yeah so it was it was always annoying when it was something like it would be like

immigration, yes or no. It was that, what was that like an S&L sketch? Like immigration, yes or no. Yeah. And so, yeah, it was kind of like that. It was and then they would pull,

but they would pull in things from like racist institutions into the gale database. Yeah. That's exactly why that database fucking sucks. Yeah. And so I would be like,

okay, here's the American Immigration Council or whatever. This is a fucking Nazi. group. Yeah. Like when you are doing research, it's important to be able to look at those sources. But when you're a freshman and haven't been told how you haven't, like, you're doing the essay to learn how to do that, but you haven't been taught how to do it.

And so you don't know that that's what that is. How can you do it? Exactly. Like if you're a more seasoned, wizened researcher, maybe, but then you don't need that database. Yeah. And I think the most important thing, I think we should probably wrap it. up kind of but I think the most important I think the most important thing is like

teaching political economy like teaching materialism and teaching you know and it's not materialism is not hard to explain to undergrad so you could it's a lot of like follow the money. Yeah. It's a good starting. Exactly. Follow the money

and like I think that needs to be part of information literacy education. I think that needs to be part of library school education but it's so much missing from political discourse like I you know, with everything with the spark and from that spark article about relics and Thompson Reuters and Lexus

Nexus, you know, posted that and the work chat. Like, hey, guys read this. Like, and I have colleagues like, I would have never known about this. Yeah, probably not, because you don't follow the money. Like,

like those kinds of things. Like, if you're not kind of plugged into it, how are you ever going to know? Or like, how are you ever even going to start thinking about those things in the information, in the information landscape relationships? Like these, how are you ever going to start understanding how these connections work? Yeah. Yeah.

And I think people are kind of learning how to do this, but they do it in a really not useful way. So they'll say something like, if the platform is free, you're the product. It's like, okay, you've kind of explained it. Yeah. You're part of the way there. Yeah, you're part of the way there, but you need to push it a little further. Okay, so how are you the product? Let's unpack that.

Like, yeah. I used to do, I used to do an activity with, I think it was second or third year students. I think it was third of your students where I'd have them go into their phones and get into Facebook. And I'd have them look at what their advertising preferences were. That was always a good activity. It was like, oh, what are you interested in? And they'd say, I'm interested in sandwiches. Where'd they get that information?

like yeah your phone your Facebook knows things about you yeah it's just a real sandwich fiend yeah yeah they got a shirt says i heart sandwiches and what always what always like what always like what always like what always like Facebook and Google they both do like time to review your privacy settings make sure they're how you want them and I'm like it's fucking great coming from you Okay, I remember what I was going to say. So I think we can say that we've developed a new framework improved, which is one, fuck authority, not authority as contextual and whatever, instructed. And then two, teach materialism or just say follow the money. So we've got, there it is.

That's the library. Two new frames. Yeah, the library work framework. Yeah. Fuck authority. And we're authority, so fuck us. Yeah. Also, I'm not authority.

Don't listen to me. Don't listen to anyone. Live in the woods. Become ungovernable. Just become on Verna Herzog and be mad at nature. And then the nature does this thing. Yeah. Can I give some recommendations of things that I think are good?

Oh, you've got wrecks. I do. Because it's like these are things that have like helped me. Because it's like, oh, this process of like learning how to do the information literacy, but then not really having the ideology. behind it and if you know you're someone like my age and you haven't learned all this stuff yet there's a couple good resources that I found really useful one's called the alt-right playbook it's a playlist on YouTube that I can't remember the name of the channel right now but it's basically

going through like sort of like rhetorical methods and whatnot because like you know you get people it's like oh well we have to talk again like we either have to not engage with the alt-right at all or, you know, we just present them with the facts and dunk on them and that's going to work. And it's more about like, this is about like recognizing their rhetorical methods and their strategies and like why certain techniques don't work and like how to break down arguments and how to read between the lines and stuff. I found it very useful. So that one's good. Another one is Anne Reardon, her YouTube channel, How to Cook That. She is a chef, a pastry chef. from Australia.

And she noticed all these like five minute crafts and like, here's how you can make a caramel brulee thing in two seconds and it'll be great. And like breaking down these like misinformation like little content farm like YouTube things and like actually just some pretty good investigative journalism. But like sort of breaking down like how to recognize like what to look. look for in videos to show that this is obviously false and like it's shit that I don't notice. And I'm like, oh, God. Yeah, it's so obvious now that she's pointed it out. So she's real good. I really like the podcast you're wrong about. They tend to do very nuanced. Like, they'll do like,

here's the thing and then here's the debunking and here's the debunking of the debunking and are just very good at going into like letting things be a little messy going into nuance, but they're still pretty leftist. So I recommend listening to them. I've been on a kick, and I've been learning a lot listening to them. So, yeah, those are my little recommendations. Thank you for letting me share them. Yay, Rex.

Yeah. Cheer was muted because it was too long. How dare you fucking mute cheer? Fuck cheer. That's the Supreme Court reference. to those of you heads out there, fuck cheer is a Supreme Court reference to the current court case

going on right now. Oh, I'm so behind on what's happening in the world. I've been back on Twitter for like... Fuck cheer, fuck school, fuck basketball. I'm a Snapchat team and I'm going to the Supreme Court. Oh yeah,

I'm still. I couldn't find very much good fillet. I'm really trying to find like, I'm trying to find good sitcom stuff where they're like, who,

whatever the someone's like. Like a 90s sitcom. Yeah, like when someone like, when someone kisses or something. Yeah. God, have you ever seen those like,

I've searched for so long to find one I couldn't. Get like the home improvement sound board. Can we get a, can we get a sloppy bass from the sign? Oh, the sign felt funny. Another, um,

podcast does that so I don't want to steal their bit. Can we get the curb your enthusiasm music? Can we just, no, can we get it's always sunny? We'll say something a bit. The gang. I actually know that I found that music one time recently. So fun. I love it's always sunny.

I don't remember where I encountered it, but I recently found it like on Spotify. I was like, what the fuck? Yeah, it's always sunny. Gymnopedia or something. It's like an actual real piece of music. It wasn't written. for that show at all. It's like a classical piece.

It's a legit classical music piece. But I think it's like from the 50s. Yeah. Like a schlucky 50s song. Yeah. But you know, like, yeah, do the do the thing where it's like if you watch videos of Big Bang theory, but without the laugh track. Oh, God. Yeah.

Or friends. No, I've never watched it. Okay. They're like clips on you do. I might be like a little masochistic, but, you know. not that way. I mean, I've done some weird shit to myself, but never that. Oh, God.

Come on, man. Dude. Come on. Just come on, man. I seriously don't want to do that at a conference now if someone asks me a question. Don't ask me that. Just come on, man. I'm giving a presentation Friday morning, so.

All right. I hope someone asks you a question and you can answer that way. It's just, oh, dude. I wonder if anyone will know me if I'm going to be famous now. Yeah, if you Google Smirk 2021, the first thing that shows up is a rope conference. Because it's the Southern Miss Institutional Repository Conference, SMIRC, and if you Google Smirk 2021, first thing's a rope conference. I'm like, hell yeah.

Like bondage? Like bondage? Yeah. Nice. And like the performative aspect of it. And then the second one is the institutional repository. conference. That's amazing. That's how you know you're in the right business. Exactly. You shouldn't clarify on your CV if you put the presentation there. Just like don't spell it out.

Just do smart. What if you presented on institutional repositories at a Shibari conference? That'd be fucking fun. I wonder, one, do they actually have like conferences and not conventions for kink? Two, could I bring some librarian shit into that? I'm sure the leather archives has done something. I suck their dick. enough already, but, you know, like leather archives call me. It's official, podcast official, leather archives, please call Jay. Friend of the pod in my head, in my heart. Please be a friend of the pod. Aspirational friend of the pod. We need to do the porn episode.

Oh, yeah. We should get, we should get Bree. I should, I should, I should message Bree. Okay. Go on. So, uh, follow us on library punk. I just put out a call. for donations, for our guests, so we can pay them for their time.

Good night. Yay.